Algae growth is increasingly desirable because of the demand for clean energy. Algae growth ponds are typically on the order of 4″ in depth because photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) does not effectively penetrate to depths greater than that. Nevertheless, usually algae only use about 10% of the PAR in incident sunlight for photosynthesis. There is great need for methods to promote algae growth, e.g., methods that allow greater percentage of the incident sunlight to be utilized for photosynthesis and promote a significantly greater mass of algae for a given surface area per unit time.